Bring on the Fun!

What's better than having your grandparents come and visit? Not much! Grandma Patty and Granddad Richie have come to visit for over a week, the first weekend packed with birthday events (see next post!), and the second weekend coinciding with Ian's big NYC book fair. I was worried about how we would fill the time in between, but of course - poof - it just disappeared in the blink of an eye. Uncle Ian and Aunt Suzanne stayed with us for much of the time as well, just adding to the fun, especially with lots of rolicking games on the Xbox Kinect. Suz joined us for a day at the park towards the end of the stay, an unusually beautiful early April day - see last photo!

I'm not sure Maddie really knew Grandma and Granddaddy were coming, but Ollie was SO excited for their arrival. When they finally did come, he dashed around the house showing them a multitude of exciting things -- his newest drawings from school, his favorite Tuskegee airplane, how he can hop from one end of the house to the other on one foot... all the important stuff. Then he came to me and asked to whisper something in my ear, very intent and excited. "I don't know who to play with first!!" That pretty much sums it up... just too much happiness.

After the birthday weekend, which also included a fantastic bagel brunch on Sunday (a favorite family tradition) featuring an entire side of home-smoked salmon care of Granddad Richie, it was a fairly quiet week. Ollie went to school as usual on Tuesday and Thursday, and we all went down to the pool to cheer him on during his weekly swimming lesson. Grandma Patty wasn't feeling 100%, so we didn't venture into NYC together, although Granddaddy did go in for a day to help Ian set up for the book fair. We all just had fun doing regular things together, and the big event of the week was a trip to the Liberty Science Center (first two photos from this post were taken there). Ollie loved the ball-throwing machine best of all - I think he could have played there for hours. Maddie loved the fish and the rice bin. We were all exhausted when the day was done!

Now I do have an answer to "What's better than having your grandparents come and visit?" Answer: having BOTH pairs of grandparents! For two weeks in July, Andy's parents will be visiting us up in Maine, so ALL the grandparents will be on hand! Along with cousins Aidan and Eli... too much happiness all over again.

March Recap

March is nearly over and I have only had one post, which doesn't really count as my NY trip was actually at the end of February! Thankfully, March was a pretty low-key month, marked mostly by strange weather. A week ago on Friday, we had 70 degree temperatures, and it was soooo much fun playing at the playground for a super long time. After that a cold front came in, and the weekend was mostly sunny but very cold. Then - bam! Sunday night and all through Monday, it snowed like a bugger, and we got 6 or 8 inches of heavy snow. Just as we all dug out, Wednesday it snowed again. Maybe the coast is clear now... let's hope so. It is nearly April, after all! Ollie's been busy with school and swimming, and in a few weeks he'll try soccer for the first time, once a week. Of course, his favorite thing is hanging out with his best buddies. Same for Maddie, whose closest pals are Addie and Maddie. My big job now is planning for her 2nd birthday party, which is only six days away! It's mostly family and just a couple of friends... more on that to come. All of a sudden, Maddie's just such a big girl, but I can't get it out of my head that she's my baby. Witness the shot of her sleeping in "basic meatloaf position," a holdover from babydom that's sure to disappear pretty soon. I had to get this shot while I still could...

Two big things to report today. First - we got rid of our hot tub! We weren't using it (came with the house), and the deck wasn't built to support that much weight (previous owners apparently didn't care), so we just were not inspired. Not to mention I just don't care enough to deal with all the hassle. So it's been an eyesore for 3.5 years, and we put it on Craigslist for free... got 35 inquiries in under five hours! Same week - gone! Lovely. Second - Ollie had a terrible night last night. We've really never had a night like this. Ollie was sick at 9:30pm, then a few times more, and from 10:30pm through 6:30am, he had to be sick about every 10-15 minutes, though almost nothing came up. Poor guy!!! He was with me in bed, so all night long we pretty much didn't sleep - he might doze for 10 minutes at a time, but that's it. He's a lot better today, but completely not himself; he just needs to rest (see photo, awwww). He's only drinking Pedialite today ("yummy juice!"). [Update: night 2 was without incident, a good long sleep, and he's starting to eat today, no signs of distress. Yay!] Meanwhile, Maddie seems intent on being extra cute and trying to cheer up her big brother. She always likes watching "Tun-tun" (Chuggington, her new favorite) with him, and has started talking excitedly about her "hop-bum" birthday cake.

Wicked Fun!

I'm still glowing from my weekend in NYC with my good friend, Carol... one night and two days with nothing to do but have girly fun! With our husbands at the helm and not at all daunted by the prospect of a whole weekend alone with the kids :-), we set off for our much anticipated adventure. We took the bus in on Saturday morning - so convenient as the bus station (at the train station) is only a couple of miles from our house. The trip in went so quickly - we spent much of time on our phones searching for cool brunch spots. Even though we were both severely coffee deprived, we decided to wait till we got to the restaurant to have any, which was a good call since it didn't take too long to get there. Mind you, if you ever want to go to NYC, choose as your travel companion someone who lived in the city for ten years!! Man, Carol is a walking map and city guide!! She was amazing. :-) So, we got to our chosen brunch spot, a fabulous restaurant called Balthazar, a French bistro so perfectly perfect in every way -- a 20 foot high tin ceiling, huge antique mirrors, monsterous bouquets of flowers, an entire wall of wine bottles, smiling, gracious, efficient waiters who refill your coffee at every perfect moment, glittery, sophisticated people at nearby tables, chatting happily in different languages, stupidly expensive eggs benedict (of course!), and a bathroom with a cheerful attendant and a strange assortment of lotions, perfumes, and the like. A perfect start to our weekend.
Completely sated, we headed out into the crisp day and decided that we'd like to spend loads of time just wandering aimlessly in and out of shops, something we so rarely get to do. Our kids were never far from our minds, and right away we had to stop at a street vendor's table and browse his wares -- a zillion different hand-knitted finger puppets, all so cute. We each chose a great assortment to bring home to the kids - mine were a penguin, camel, pig with a vest on, monkey in green overalls. giraffe, and a yellow spotted one that could be an alligator or a dinosaur, not sure exactly. We headed towards 5th Avenue for shopping, although the majority of our purchases were at fancy chocolate shops... we kind of created our own "chocolate tour." Our highest recommendation goes to Michel Cluizel's - just stunningly delicious.
We were amazed again at how quickly the time flew by, and before we knew it we were headed for dinner at Nobu, a gorgeous Japanese restaurant whose sexy atmosphere didn't disappoint! We did struggle with the menu a bit, and our waiter didn't work too hard to help us out, but we enjoyed the sushi and tempura. After dinner we had to practically run about 9 blocks to the theater so we wouldn't be late for Wicked! If you're trying to choose which show to see in NYC, you can't go wrong with Wicked, especially if you've read the book first. It was fantastic, top marks all around. It was nearly 11pm when we got out of the theater, but we were still in high spirits when we walked a few blocks to Times Square (see last photo) and admired all the flashy lights before heading back to the hotel for a deep sleep until 8:30am, an unheard of hour for us! The hotel was only a block from Times Square, but it was surprisingly quiet at night.
We had a leisurely morning after our late wake-up, and made our way to Chinatown for dimsum, OF COURSE! Glorious. We had a few hours after that to continue our aimless wandering before our 3pm massage appointment at Bliss. We did push the limits of our girly getaway to the extreme, didn't we?! Thanks, Carol, for being my awesome friend and fantastic travel companion! I'm already looking forward to next time, and we might just have to bring some more friends with us!